Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
